You know TV shows are coming to this

September 23, 1999|By Kevin Cowherd

A preview of the new fall TV season:

"Everybody Wants to Smack Dwayne" (NBC):

A dumb guy (Tony Danza) moves cluelessly through life while his beautiful, efficient wife (Laura Dern) works, runs the house, raises the kids, pays the bills, initiates their sex life and changes the oil in the cars every 3,000 miles.

Tonight: Dwayne's wife shows him how to obtain a library card.

"The Dope of Brooklyn" (ABC): A fat dumb guy (Tom Arnold) sits around watching sports on TV and lusting after Harley- Davidsons and half-price Budweiser sales while his beautiful, efficient wife (Terri Garr) and her parents (Rue McClanahan, Ed Asner) wonder why she married the big loser.

"Sarah 'n' Skeeter" (Fox): Only if Cameron Diaz dated Strom Thurmond could a couple be more mismatched!

Sarah's an agoraphobic Jewish aerobics instructor from New York, Skeeter's a good ol' boy from South Carolina who hopes to quit busing tables someday and join the NASCAR circuit.

Surprise: Both are on the rebound from bad marriages!

Tonight: Watch the sparks fly when each answers a classified ad for a rental on Manhattan's West Side -- and they end up as roommates!

"ER Blues" (NBC): Emergency room patients at a gritty inner-city hospital slump wearily in hard plastic chairs, watch a grainy black-and-white TV bolted to an overhead platform and read 5-year-old copies of People as they wait hours for treatment.

Tonight: Despite bleeding severely from a gunshot wound to the forehead, Tanya (Vanessa Williams) is informed by the bored desk nurse (Isabel Sanford) that she can't see a doctor until she fills out multiple HMO forms.

"The Caffeinated Martha Stewart" (The Food Network): Martha does vigorous calisthenics, sands and finishes a 150-year-old bookcase and bakes a flawless Key lime pie from scratch in this hectic half-hour season premiere.

"Shysters!" (ABC): It's just another day at the law office of Spencer & Rithkin as Hal (John Stamos) convinces Eddie (Judd Hirsch) that they could collect a cool $3 million from an elderly widow (Jayne Meadows) who tapped him from behind at a red light in her Dodge Dart.

"Beverly-Dawson High" (WB): While not actually attending classes, incredibly attractive students meet daily to romp in tight, skimpy outfits, couple feverishly in darkened science labs after school and, most of all, endlessly re-hash their various "relationships."

Tonight: Jenni (Ashley Leigh) breaks up with Jed (Lee Ashley); Tiffany (Kimberly Leigh) is stunned to hear that her biological father (Burt Reynolds) and stepfather (Edward James Olmos) are both back in town.

"Two Guys and a Girl and This Other Guy" (CBS): When two self-absorbed yuppie sportswriters (Tom Everett Scott, Mark-Paul Gosselaar) advertise for a roommate to share expenses, they're delighted when the vixen-ish Anna (Christina Applegate) expresses an interest in moving in.

But the boys are in for a shock when Anna shows up with her luggage and her ex-husband (Howie Long), a former NFL defensive end who still carries a torch for her and threatens to "bust up" anyone who even looks in her direction!

"I'm With Stupid!" (UPN): Private eye Kenny Stupid (Adam Sandler) has fallen about as far as someone in his racket can fall: He's reduced to tracking down missing Schwinn 10-speeds for wealthy clients in Beverly Hills.

When the equally dim-witted bicycle store worker Ariana (Charo) loses her job because her boss can't decipher her thick Spanish accent, the two decide to team up, with the excitable Ariana now wearing T-shirts with an arrow pointing left and the fledgling company's slogan: "I'm with Stupid!"

"Galaxy Stomper" (UPN): When the starship Galaxy Stomper lifts off on its three-year mission to explore other planets with a crew of two blacks, two Asians, two Hispanics and two whites, a new era of inclusiveness in space travel is christened.

But the Stomper must soon return to Earth when a check of the ship's duty roster reveals no women on board.

Even when a female commander (Tyne Daly) and first officer (Penny Marshall) are installed, the Stomper remains grounded as NASA officials try to determine if there's also an equal balance of heterosexuals to homosexuals and vegetarians to meat-eaters.